John Solomon, Apple’s head of enterprise and government since 2015, has left his position at the company, according to Reuters, which confirmed the departure with Apple.
John Solomon joined Apple in 2015 as its vice president for enterprise and government, tasked with selling Apple products to large organizations. His LinkedIn profile shows that he left Apple in January, and the profile lists his current position as “TBD.”
It is not yet clear as to why Solomon left Apple, or the effect his departure will have on Apple’s enterprise business. According to the report, Apple did not immediately name a successor to Solomon, although Apple has increased its efforts to sell large business in the past few years.
“In 2014, Apple launched a partnership with IBM to help build custom iOS applications for businesses,” reads the report. “In 2016, Apple made a deal with Cisco so that iPhones would work better on Cisco’s networking gear and also partnered with Deloitte to encourage more businesses to build iOS applications.”
In 2015, Apple said it generated $25 billion in revenue from its enterprise business, representing about 11% of its total revenue from June 2014 to June 2015. But that number, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, is a “very small amount compared to what the opportunity is.”
Though one can only speculate about Solomon’s departure, it is likely Apple will continue to focus on the enterprise, which could balance out any consumer market downturns. Already, Apple has partnered with some big-name providers to get businesses, such as Deloitte, to use its devices.
